


Playmakers

by orphan_account



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Acting, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Clary and Jace are siblings, Football, Gen, M/M, Simon-centric, Slow Build, actor!simon, footballer!raphael, hodge is the coach, luke is the principal, simon is pansexual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-21 15:56:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7393864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon Lewis is a pansexual acting student in a school full of straight footballers. He has a distaste for jocks and he's not afraid to admit it. When his locker is vandalized by a mystery student, he can only assume that it was one of them who did it. Unfortunately for him, his best friend Clary has just decided to join the girls football team, so he'll be spending a lot more time around them than anticipated. To top it all off, he's pretty sure the creepy vampire wannabe guy on the boys team wants him dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It All Started With A Locker

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: this chapter contains frequent use of the F slur.

It all started with a locker. His was number 2222, situated on the second floor, directly across from the drama room. It was perfect. Its exterior was sleek and unblemished. Its interior easily held all the required textbooks. Even its number was pleasing. Its lack of flaws, however, made it only more glaringly obvious when one appeared.

Simon noticed it the moment he stepped out into the hall. The once bare locker door had been defaced, one large, horrible word spray painted across it in disgusting neon pink. He stared at it and the word played over and over in his head. Fag. Fag. Fag.

“Who did that?” Came a concerned voice from behind him and Simon turned to see his best friend, Clary.

He shrugged. In all honesty, it could have been anyone. He had plenty of enemies at The Institute. Being one of the only out LGBT, let alone pansexual, kids in school had it’s disadvantages. It didn’t help that he himself was never one to back down from a fight when one arose.

“Probably one of the football guys. You know, dudes who spend all their free time pinning each other down have to assert their masculinity somehow.”

Clary gave a small smile but ran a hand through her hair, a nervous tick Simon had caught onto years prior.

“What’s wrong?”

“I kind of tried out for the football team.” 

“That’s great,” Simon exclaimed. “Did you get in?”

“Yeah. I know you hate them but-”

“If it makes you happy that’s all that matters.” Simon assured.

Clary laughed in relief and hugged him. Over his shoulder, Simon noticed a dark haired boy looking at them with an expression he couldn’t place. He was probably another one of Clary’s endless string of admirers. Simon hugged her tighter then, just to annoy the kid, and was pleased to see him look away. The boy shifted his gaze to Simon’s locker, squinting his eyes slightly to read the messy graffiti. He frowned. 

“You should go talk to the principal.” Clary suggested, when she had pulled away.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Simon replied, swinging his backpack off and beginning to rifle through its contents.  
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

“Mr.Lewis, there are better ways to handle situations like these.” The principal announced sternly, rubbing his temples.

“Come on, Luke,” Simon started “ Let me explain.”

“There is no good explanation for this, Simon. You vandalized school property.” Luke sighed.

Principal Luke Garroway was a family friend of Clary’s and had known Simon well since he was a little kid. He was an incredibly understanding man and a great principal. However, he wasn’t about to show favouritism. Simon had to deal with his problems just like any other kid in the school did.

“It was already vandalized.” Simon reasoned.

“But you understand that we don’t need any more damage done, don't you?” 

“I’m expressing myself,” Simon shot back “Students should be allowed to express their sexuality freely.”

“Clean it up, Simon.”

“Fine. Is that all?”

“No. I have another punishment for you. You are aware that football tryouts were yesterday afternoon, of course?”

“Of course!” Simon responded mockingly, grinning.

“I’ve been informed that the teams still need a water boy.”

Simon groaned. Clary being on the team was one thing. Sure, he would have to go to every game but sitting in the stands and cheering was hardly work compared to the constant interaction with football players he would now have to face. He would have to go to every practice as well as the games, which would conflict with his acting schedule for the school play for sure. 

He met Luke’s eyes. There was no use arguing. It was clearly not optional. He stood and turned to exit.

“Ask the janitor for some cleaning supplies for that locker!” Luke called out after him.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Permanent marker was harder to get off of metal than anticipated and Simon was still scrubbing halfheartedly at it with a sponge half an hour later. The words he himself had written at the bottom, a bold uppercase “AND PROUD!” had begun to fade somewhat after rigorous sponging but the original graffiti remained vibrant and visible. 

The label was clear to anyone who walked by. The owner of locker 2222 was a weirdo, a freak, a fag. He wasn’t even gay. Not that it made any difference but he liked girls too. So what if he also happened to get crushes on boys?  


He scrubbed harder and harder until little flecks of pink paint started to flake off and fall to the ground. He checked his watch. Three forty-five. Tomorrow at this time he would find himself once more in the sweaty, stuffy gym he had been glad to leave the moment he had passed the mandatory grade ten PE class. He looked at the gym doors now. Behind them was the sound of chatter and basketballs hitting the floor. He supposed football took place primarily outside and suddenly hoped that it would rain.

His locker read “AG” boldly in pink, above a slightly faded exclamation mark in black marker. Simon took one last swipe with his sponge. That was good enough for the moment. In fact, he was pretty proud of his handiwork.

He was proud enough that the next morning, when he returned to see his locker once again covered in marker, he was reasonably annoyed. The words had changed. All together, it read "el ángel!”. The “A” and G had been borrowed from what was already written, an “el” added to either side and an “N” squished in between. 

Simon frowned. First he had been called a fag, now an angel. He wondered if he was being made fun of. Angel was hardly something an enemy would call him. It was far more akin to the praise of an admirer. 

The bell for first period rang out loudly, interrupting these thoughts, and he slid into the crowd descending down the stairs, beginning to smile to himself. On the surface of his locker, graffiti caught the eye of students passing by. None stopped to examine it further. Down the hall, Raphael Santiago turned in to the gym.


	2. It Won't Be So Bad

“It won’t be so bad,” Clary said soothingly “Jace is on the team.” 

“Jace is so bad.” Simon replied without hesitation.

It was lunch time and he was lying face down on the carpeted floor of the drama room, trying to drown out the pressing fact that his life was over. 

“Your life is not over, Simon,” Clary said, rolling her eyes. “You’ll hardly be missing any rehearsals, anyway.“

“Run my lines with me?”

Clary agreed and they both stood to take on their roles. The transition was huge and immediate. Clary transformed instantly from a simple high school student into the powerful Lady Macbeth. Simon shifted too, from an awkward boy to the confident and uninhibited Macbeth.

It had been a pleasant surprise when they were cast together. Simon had been secretly nursing a crush on his best friend for the past few years and had always had a bit of a ridiculous hope that they would get to play a couple and somehow end up falling in love. He knew it was unlikely. Still, there was always a chance that she felt the same and just didn’t know it yet.

They were Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, the most famously passionate couple ever written. Maybe Romeo and Juliet had romance, but they had determination. Lady Macbeth would push her husband to ensure he reached his full potential. They would entrust each other, and only each other, with everything, down to the most brutal of plans. Damn if that didn’t make Simon excited.

Clary picked up both their scripts from off a chair and handed Simon his. In the audience, their friend Izzy clapped loudly.

“You two make such a cute couple,” she joked. “Don’t they, Alec?”

Her brother Alec, sitting next to her, glanced up briefly from his phone. “I don’t care. No offence, but none of you are exactly who I want to be spending my lunch with.”

“And who is?” Izzy teased, grabbing the phone out his hand and reading off of it. She wiggled her eyebrows at her brother suggestively. “Jace?”

Alec turned paler than usual. “He’s my best friend, Izzy.” 

“It’s all about subtext,” She responded simply. “Right, Simon?”

Simon looked over at Clary. She was flipping carefully through the pages of her script, reading off a monologue to herself. He thought she looked beautiful like that. 

“Right.”

“You guys have buckets of subtext,” Izzy informed Alec. “It’s like a full on bromance.”  
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Third period English class should have been easy enough. It wasn’t. To be fair, it was Mrs. Lightwood’s third period English class, which was universally acknowledged for being just about the hardest class in the entire school. Mrs. Lightwood, Alec and Izzy’s mom, did not show mercy on her children’s friends.

If football wasn’t the death of him, this poetry unit would be. Mrs.Lightwood had just assigned a project on odes. They were each expected to pair up with a classmate and write an ode to their partner. Simon wondered if his teacher tormented her students on purpose or if it was merely an added bonus for her. Either way, she seemed to take some sadistic pleasure from it. She must not have been entirely evil, though, because she let them choose their own partners.

He surveyed the room but was met with only the faces of strangers. It was one thing to not have any friends in a class but he seemed to have been placed in the only room in The Institute entirely comprised of people he had never met in his life. After three years at the decently small school, he had expected to have at least seen all of the people he would be graduating with before.

He made eye contact with a pretty girl across the room and smiled at her just as he felt a hand reach out and touch his shoulder. Against his better judgement, he turned around. 

The stranger he was faced with was familiar. He was the boy from the hallway, Simon realized. He looked equally as displeased now as he had been the day before. Simon looked up at him in confusion. He was sure they had never spoken before but here he was, standing casually in front of him as if they had know each other for years.

“Will you be my partner for the project?” He asked softly after a moment, his voice strained as if it hurt him to even say the words.

“Okay.” Simon accepted before he could think and regretted it instantly. He gazed back over at the pretty girl but she was facing the other way, talking to a friend. 

“Why?” he asked the boy before him.

“I don’t want to work with her.” came the acid response.

The boy pointed over at a dark haired girl at the back of the room, who glared openly at both of them. Simon shuddered. He wasn’t sure who was scarier. The girl balanced a pencil between her fingers then, catching Simon’s eye, snapped it clean in two. Okay, so she was definitely scarier.

“Why?” he repeated, though he had his suspicions. 

“She’s my girlfriend.” 

“Oh, yeah. I can see how that would be a reason to avoid her.”

The boy rolled his eyes and muttered something indistinct under his breath. His girlfriend stood and walked towards them with grace.

“Go to hell, Raphael.” she said sweetly.

“Ladies first, Camille.” 

Camille huffed dramatically as she made her way back to her seat. 

“Wow,” Simon let out in amazement, eyeing the furious Camille warily “You sure told her. Remind me to never date you.”


	3. The Gym Was Empty, Save For One Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys. I just wanted to thank you so much for all the lovely comments and kudos I've been receiving. I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as the last two!
> 
> There are a few new characters introduced here. I decided to make Hodge the coach because it made the most sense. For Maureen, I want to find some way to give her a happy ending after everything she's been through in the books, so even though she won't end up with Simon I'm trying to find some kind of storyline for her other than just being a romantic false lead. Also, everything about football in this chapter and on is taken from the internet because I'm a theatre kid at heart.

The gym was empty, save for one man.

“Simon Lewis? I’m Coach Starkweather.” 

“Uh, hi.” Simon looked around the abandoned room “Where is everybody?”

“Changing. So, here’s the deal, son. You provide the teams with water and clean towels after each practice. Towels are in the supply closet on the top shelf. Water bottles should be a shelf down from them. Tuesdays are boy’s practices and Wednesdays are girl’s. You will be at both. Friday evenings are boy’s games and Saturday afternoons are girl’s games. You will be at all of them. Have you got that?”

Simon nodded, taking in the information.

“Yeah,” He said uncertainly “Could you write that down?”

The coach gave Simon a disapproving look. “Go get the bottles, Lewis.”

“Right. Where are they again?”

As it turned out, Simon had to walk through the locker room in order to reach the supply closet that held the water bottles. It was located at the corner of the room, past the showers. To get to it, Simon would have to navigate an entire fleet of sweaty, half dressed teenagers, all of whom seemed to have suddenly decided to look up at the exact moment he entered their field of vision.

He smiled awkwardly, then looked down immediately, remembering that most of them didn’t particularly like boys who liked boys. PE had been a nightmare for this very reason. He had spent every class from freshman year up until it was no longer mandatory hating the locker room. He hated the putrid, lingering smell of it. He hated the way the other boys teased him ruthlessly about him supposedly wanting to look at them naked. Mostly, he hated the part of him that really did want just a peek.

Now he hummed softly to himself as he slipped past bodies, without moving his eyes from the floor. He reached the closet without interruption and pulled a bag of empty water bottles down into his arms. He shoved a few stray ones back in then he turned around. Without warning, he was met with the appearance of a boy leaning casually against the closest shower stall. Simon silently hoped that being sneaked up on wasn’t going to become an ordinary occurrence for him.

“Were you humming the firefly theme song just now?”

“It’s called the ballad of serenity.”

Jace snorted in response. 

“Hey, you’re the one who recognized it.”

“Only because you come over to my house and watch the show with my sister so often. Why does she even hang out with you anyway?”

Simon didn’t answer. He knew Clary was too good for him. He didn’t need her obnoxious brother reminding him. He ignored Jace and adjusted the bag so it lay close to his chest. 

Simon realised at that moment that he had been standing in the locker room for several minutes. In that time, most of the team had left the room. He let himself take in the remaining members to see if he recognized anyone.  


“Alec? You joined the team too?”

“Yeah. Football looked like a good way to let out some steam, that’s all.” The tall boy responded as he left the room.

Simon frowned after him. He and Alec weren’t friends. He wasn’t even sure Alec had friends. He was way too closed off. Despite that, Simon felt an affinity with him. He was almost certain Alec was gay, because he had a way of knowing these things that was usually pretty accurate. The difference between the two of them, however, was that Alec hid it. He was ashamed of it. He had never expressed interest in sports before but here he was joining the most stereotypically masculine one that existed. Simon had heard from Clary that Alec had wanted to pair up with Jace for the poetry project but Jace had decided to do his with Izzy instead. He wondered briefly if Alec joining the team had anything to do with that and what it said about him.

Across the room, another boy smiled at Simon. 

“Hey Magnus.”

“Hi Simon. You’re worried about Alexander too, aren’t you?”

The rest of football practice passed with few problems and by five Simon was even getting into the spirit of it all. It was still, of course, a nonsensically violent sport but it was sort of fun to watch. Midway through the session, he got his first chance to prove himself, handing out the now full water bottles to team members. Besides from that, however, he spent the whole time sitting. It would probably have been a good idea to bring some homework or something else to do, but at least coach Starkweather seemed to think he had a good attitude about it this way, since he had nothing to do other than pay attention to the game.

At six, Simon walked out into the hallway. He stared over at his locker. It remained unchanged from the morning. Angel, he thought. No, el ángel, with an accent and everything. It was in Spanish. Simon didn’t know a lot of Spanish, except what his dad had taught him as a kid and what he had learned in the first two weeks of his ninth grade language class before switching to French, but it was an easy enough message to decipher. Angel. He wondered about the person who had written it and why they had done so. 

The drama room door swung open out of nowhere, revealing a youthful looking, curly haired girl, smiling widely. She walked toward Simon. Up close, he could see that she was the same girl from his English class.

“Hi,” she said breathlessly “You’re Simon, right? Maureen Brown.”

Simon smiled politely back at her “Hi. I’m Simon. Wait, no, you already said that. Hi.”

Maureen giggled cheerfully. 

“Are you in the play?” Simon asked.

“I’m Lady MacDuff.”

“That’s cool. I’m-”

“Macbeth. I know. You're so awesome.” 

Simon grinned.

“Umm,” Maureen began again, before interrupting herself with more laughter “Do you maybe want to go on a date with me?”

Simon sighed. She was certainly a beautiful girl and she was nice as well. One date couldn’t hurt. It wasn’t like Clary was going to start noticing him any time soon and it had been months since he’d broken up with his last girlfriend.

“Okay,” he agreed “How about this Saturday? My band’s doing a gig. Maybe you could watch?”

Maureen lit up at the invitation and Simon knew he had made the right choice. After all, it wasn’t like he had any reason to say no.

 


	4. On Wednesday, Simon Spent His Lunchtime In The Library

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking forever with this one. Next up, Simon's band performs. You can expect that to come ASAP.

On Wednesday, Simon spent his lunchtime in the library. Raphael insisted they met so they could get a head start on the project. He was already there when Simon arrived. Simon took one look at the pile of books on the table and had to take a step back. He hadn’t been expecting this level of commitment to the project. Raphael must have found every book on odes in the library. Some were thin paperbacks with examples but most were heavy older collections, containing everything from essays on the proper form and structure to use when writing modern poetry to traditional rhyming couplets and haikus dating back to the eighteenth century. Simon picked up the smallest of the books from the top of the stack.

Raphael was sitting and scowling, midway through a large flowery first edition entitled “The Poetic Soul”. The juxtaposition would have been enough to make Simon laugh if he had any doubt that doing so would result in him being beat up. Instead he sat down and flipped boredly to the introduction of his own book. Trying to read it proved to be of little use, however, as the words blended together in his boredom and he found himself reading and rereading the same dull sentences over and over again.

“Are you sure this is necessary?” he asked, when he finally reached page five. “Who cares if we know the form? How are we supposed to write odes about each other if we never even have a conversation?”

Raphael huffed in annoyance, bookmarking his spot and crossing his arms. “You want to talk? Fine. Let’s talk.”

Simon’s eyes widened."Really?”

“Sure,” Raphael said “What do you want to talk about?”

“I never thought I’d make it this far.” Simon admitted.

Raphael made to pick up his book again but, without thinking, Simon grabbed his wrist to stop him. “No. Sorry. Uh, tell me about your family. Please.” He added.

Raphael shook Simon’s hand off. “I have a few brothers and a mother. They’re nice, I suppose.”

“You suppose?”

Raphael shrugged.

“My mom is the best,” Simon told him ”After my dad left she had to take care of my sister and me all by herself but she’s always been really awesome at it. My sister, Rebecca, is great too. She loves drawing, which is cool because I love acting so we’ve kind of got that in common, being artists. I don’t know what I’d do without them. They’ve always been there for me no matter what. That’s really comforting to have, you know?”

A small smile played across Raphael’s lips. It was an unfamiliar expression. Simon hadn’t known him long, but in the time since they’d met he hadn’t ever seen him smile before. A strange sense of pride build up inside him. His words had made Raphael smile. Suddenly, he felt like he would say anything to keep that smile there.

“Your an actor,” Raphael said. "I saw you in last year’s play.”

Simon laughed. “You bought tickets to see Shrek The Musical?”

Raphael looked away “My girlfriend made me go because she was in it.”

“Really? The girlfriend I met?”

“She thinks she’s better than anyone else and only tried out because she wanted to prove she could be cast as the lead.”

“Who was she?”

“Lord Farquaad.”

Simon snorted. “So, I bet you thought I was a pretty good Donkey, huh?”

“You were alright.” Raphael said. "You’re not a bad singer.”

Simon grinned. “I love music. I’ve got a band, Sea Vegetable Conspiracy, with a couple of my friends. We play every Saturday at the Alto bar. You could come see us, if you want.”

“Sea Vegetable Conspiracy? Dios.” 

There was that smile again. Raphael tried to hide it by by turning and picking his book up off the table but Simon could still see the edges of it forming.

“We should get back to work,” Raphael said. He sounded for the most part like the same stoic boy he had been ten minutes ago, but there was something betraying in his tone. “I might stop by on Saturday. If I’m not too busy.”

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

After school, Simon was met with his second football practice, and his first with the girl’s team. Just like the day before, he walked through the boy’s locker room to get the water bottles, only now the room was almost completely empty, as the girls were in their own locker room. He could hear the sound of a shower that was still on, so there just have been someone in the room with him, one last straggler from final period gym class. He simply ignored them meaning to slip in and out before they noticed him.

The water stopped. The stall door opened and out stepped a water soaked Alec, holding a towel securely around his hips. He froze when he saw Simon across the room.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m getting water bottles. What are you doing here?”

“I don’t like showering while everyone else is in the room, okay?” Alec replied defensively.

“Okay.” Simon said "Sorry.”

During the rest of the practice, he kept his eyes on Clary. He brought one of the simpler poetry books with him but he didn’t read it. He had decided to check it out after having spent the entire end of his lunch period unable to get past the first poem. That was probably at least in part because the poems in it were all in Spanish. He figured the structure was the same, regardless of the language. Otherwise, why would Raphael have pulled it out? Then he realized that Raphael was probably a lot more fluent in Spanish than he was. 

Just as Clary scored a touchdown, Simon noticed a bookmark sticking out out and turned to the page it was on. The poem was something religious. Simon recognized some of the imagery. There was dios for god and paraíso for heaven and there was the word ángel staring up at him again. He closed the book, looked up, and cheered.


	5. Hello New York

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. I'm ashamed of myself. I started writing two other stories in the past week alongside this one. They're in present tense too so switching back to past tense feels kind of limiting in a way. Anyway, enjoy.

“Hello New York! We are Rock Solid Panda!” Simon, called out to the half empty bar where he stood onstage.

“Wait, didn’t we change our name to Sexist Pigs last week?” Eric Hillchurch questioned from his drum set.

They both looked at over at the third band member, Matt Charlton, who shrugged. “I thought we were Fun Academy.”

“We’re The Mortal Instruments!” Kirk Duplesse announced from backstage, walking out from behind the curtains. “Right? We agreed this morning.”

The fifth and final member, Jordan Kyle nodded in agreement with this.

“Okay,” Simon amended with no less enthusiasm “We’re The Mortal Instruments!”

At a nearby table, Maureen laughed into her glass of coke. Simon gave her a not so subtle wave and she smiled wide. Simon scanned the room. This was probably the biggest crowd his band had ever gathered. He had gotten a few friends to come out. Clary, Izzy, and Magnus were all grouped together at a table in the back. Along with his inviting Maureen, Kirk and Matt had brought their girlfriends and several of Eric’s regular admirers were scattered about. Plus there were a few regular bar patrons around, none of whom were paying too much attention to them but who were at least not leaving upon their arrival. Thus the Alto had a far bigger crowd packed in than usual. Simon didn’t quite understand why he was so upset when he failed to see Raphael hidden in it.

They played a full set and Simon tried not let his mind wander from the music too much. It wasn’t as if he and Raphael were even friends. Raphael didn’t care about the songs or the name or even Simon, for that matter. They barely even knew each other. Despite all these logical reasons not to, Simon still felt a tinge of disappointment. He didn’t let it show, though.

When the show was over, he hopped off the small stage and leaned back against it in an attempt at looking cool and casual. Maureen was staring at him wide eyed, like he was the coolest guy in the world. That was good, right? That was what he wanted. He wanted a girlfriend, someone who actually liked him for once. He said quick goodbyes to his bandmates and friends before indulging Maureen. He shot her his best “okay, he’s a nerd but at least he’s a cute nerd” smile. 

“Hey. Uh, let’s go for a walk.”

Maureen was excited at the prospect. She tugged her sweater up around her shoulders and got up to stand beside Simon. He indicated a back door and they strode towards it together. Simon was acutley aware of the way her hand brushed his. He thought she might want him to hold it, but when he tried to, her expression flickered to a kind of terrified one, so he gave up on that. She wasn’t like most girls he had ever been on dates with, he realized. She seemed to almost revere him whereas it was usually the other way around.

The night air chilled him immediately. The alley way looked empty but he felt like he was being watched. He wasn’t. There was just Maureen standing next to him, expectantly. He suddenly had no idea what to say. It was beginning to rain just slightly but he didn’t think she would be interested in conversation about the weather. He looked down at his feet and kicked the pavement, thinking.

“Simon?”

He looked up and there was Raphael, looking uncertain, dressed in a formal dress shirt and pants. His hands were stuck in his pockets and he shifted his weight from foot to foot. It was kind of cute, Simon thought. This was not the calm and collected Raphael from school. He was almost two hours late. Simon raised an eyebrow.

“Did I miss the show?”

“Yeah,” Simon laughed “But don’t worry, there’s still empty seats. It wasn’t a big deal or anything. We’re playing next week too.”

“I’d like to come. Today I-”

“Had better things to do?”

“...was at a funeral” Raphael finished.

“Woah, I’m sorry.” Simon said reproachfully. 

Raphael shrugged. Simon figured he was the kind of guy who didn’t let his emotions get the best of him. He didn’t get too choked up about anything minor like the death of a loved one. Or, he just didn’t know the person who died that well. Yeah. Simon didn’t know Raphael that well but he was pretty sure he had a heart beneath the whole goth getup. Conversely, a goth jock was a hilarious idea in theory, so why wasn’t Raphael funny to look at? Maybe because he also kind of terrifying. Okay, he was mixed bag, that was for sure.

Raphael was stoic. He was one of those people who always seemed like they were above whatever the current situation happened to be. Raphael wasn’t interested in being friends with a nerd theatre kid like Simon, no way. He was his partner for a project and he had come to check out a band playing in a bar. That proved nothing. Somehow, knowing that Raphael probably didn’t care if he lived or died made Simon that much more determined to win him over. He decided right then that they were going to be friends.

“We’re going on a walk. Come with us.” He suggested.

Raphael didn’t say anything but he sort of half nodded. It wasn’t the full energetic yes he'd hoped for but it wasn’t a no either. Simon took it. He didn’t wait to ask for permission before barrelling off down the street. Maureen raced after him. Simon turned to look back. Raphael followed without bothering to keep up, but followed nonetheless.

Simon knew exactly where he was going. It was his favourite place to be alone. He hadn’t ever brought anyone there before, even Clary. She wouldn’t understand it. He didn't know why, but he thought Raphael would get it. And Maureen, well, he wasn't so sure they were going to work out anyway.


End file.
